Daniel’s Blog

[Warning]This blog post contains technical information, apologies to those who read my blog for the more personal posts[/Warning]

What is ODS?

ODS or OpenLink Data Spaces is a Virtuoso powered web application, it can be seen as an implementation of something similar to what Jon Udell calls the Fourth Platform. It is a distributed system that has been developed with a social/collaborative mindset. It has its own blogging, wiki, photo gallery and bookmarking components, and also integrates with WordPress and MediaWiki. ODS can also grab information from services such as del.icio.us and facebook.

The clever thing about ODS is that it opens all of these components and integrations to the Semantic Web. You can write SPARQL queries to look through the various components and integrations of the system, yep, you can SPARQL your own WordPress blog! This has been enabled by using Semantic vocabularies: SIOC, SKOS and FOAF - in addition to some innovative use of technologies such as XBEL, OpenID, OPML, ATOM, RSS and SyncML etc etc etc.

More details about what ODS is can be seen: (HERE) and (HERE)

So you’d think that all of the user interface is going to be a big mess of complexity - well OpenLink have done a good job of clearing up the UI, and they have plans to improve it further. So how do we use it.

How to use ODS

Well, I have been exploring ODS (and Virtuoso and OAT) for only two days and there is a lot more to it all that I haven’t seen yet. But the interface for ODS is simple, we are provided with the components at the top of the web app, and by clicking on any one of them you have the option to create the a new instance of that component (or application as it is called within the system - quite reminiscent of systems like Facebook who have apps and Google who have widgets).

One of the cool parts of ODS is the briefcase, which brings all of the other components together into one area ready for some data crunching using SPARQL (for example) and easy navigation by the user.

By looking into briefcase a little more you start to realise that you are actually centralising all of your data… we have a central endpoint. Centralised yet distributed.

Centralised Endpoint - Useful Simple URIs

By centralising everything we have one simple way of accessing data using URIs.

For example, my personal myopenlink URI is:

https://myopenlink.net/dataspace/danieljohnlewis#this

And everything is accessible through:

https://myopenlink.net/dataspace/danieljohnlewis#this

When I say everything I mean you can use it for FOAF, SIOC, SKOS etc etc.

Meshups

So as you can see we are “meshing” these things together which would previously have been separate entities with potentially different identities. We mesh these things together and provide one uniform identity (and this identity is in the form of a URI and an OpenID - same value). Clever.

Once these things are meshed, you can now see that you can compare information from these different entities (or components) and see things that you previously couldn’t. E.g. You could ask “what websites have I bookmarked, and talked about on my blog, that are to do with some type of computer”. These things are possible. Linked Data.

Power and Scalability

So we have some clever stuff, but we need the power and the storage. ODS has been developed with this in mind, and is installable on Amazon EC2. ODS + Amazon EC2 = A Powerful, Speedy, Scalable, Social Data Web Cloud.

“A Data Space in the Clouds”
Finally

Of course ODS is only one way of implementing “Linked Data”/ “Meshing”/”Cloud Data”/”Cloud Computing” and no doubt there will be more attempts by various people and organisations - and not necessarily in the same ways… and its going to be interesting to see how these things occur - and - themselves, mesh together to form a larger “Data Web”.

I am still learning about all the services provided by ODS, OAT and Virtuoso - but I am liking what I am seeing.

Technorati Tags: openlink, ods, ec2, linkeddata, meshup

Exemplary Semantic Web Systems

I am surprised about how powerful and usable some of the Semantic Web Applications are out there. Things like:

• Zitgist Browser - Which is essentially a Semantic Web viewer
• RDF Browser - Which is similar to Zitgist, but has a few more features - and a different UI.
• DBpedia - A system which extracts information from wikipedia, provides it in a SemWeb format and allows you to query over it (using SPARQL). E.g. CLICK HERE for Get All “Birds” from wikipedia
• PingTheSemanticWeb - Can be seen as a Semantic Web version of something a bit like Technorati or Ping-o-Matic.
• Sindice - Is a Semantic Search Engine - worth checking this out, its cool.

All of the above are based on technology associated with or developed by a company called OpenLink Software (more on them in a later blog post, but I will say the following). OpenLink do provide an awesome data server which presents data in a completely Semantic Web fashion, and they take their experience with technologies such as ODBC and JDBC very seriously - they do this with innovation in mind and a completely different view on business that I have seen. Look out for Virtuoso and other OpenLink products.
There are some other Semantic Web services which are quite advanced and in a usable state, such as:

• The Talis Platform - A Semantic Data Store
  
• Facet by Leigh Dodds of Ingenta - An RDF/SPARQL Web UI engine
  
• Exhibit (part of the SIMILE project at MIT) - An AJAX/Javascript Semantic Web Browser “thingy”
• BBC Memoryshare: https://www.bbc.co.uk/memoryshare/ - A system to share memories of things past
  

We also have some smaller companies taking on RDF solutions for their projects, these include:

• GoNumber - a Business Directory
  
• Miomi - A User Generated History tool

All of these projects are successful through the innovative use of Simplicity and well researched products. It is a surprise that more web developers have not heard of them, and definitely a surprise that more people are not using a Semantic Web solution - especially with servers like Virtuoso around.

Its about the data

Tim Berners-Lee (creator of the Web) recently made a blog post about the Giant Global Graph, now this isn’t a renaming of the Semantic Web, it is purely saying:

We have the social graph already, just look at the Semantic Web. Semantic Web technology allows you to have things like FOAF, SKOS and SIOC to give you the powerful connections that you require.

I add these things are available now, the Semantic Web isn’t this mess or mash of “stuff”… its all well defined (well most of it), and its certainly more defined than most websites out there. Even websites that have been POSHed up! (well, at least Microformats are half way there)

Think of it this way, do you know what the first web system was… well I have already mentioned it was by TimBL. It was at CERN, the research labs in Switzerland. It was in fact a Social Web system, but it was a Semantic system too. This ENQUIRE system allowed the staff at CERN to have their own page, and to reference other pages and build up relationships between people. It was basically something that (TimBL, correct me if I am wrong):

• Share telephone numbers, office numbers
• Share current research trends
• Share documentation across teams

Now this is a simple, collaborative and social environment with a specific focus and connections are labelled with meaningful name (sounds very similar to the Web 3.0 post I made the other day doesn’t it?!?!). The most important thing here is the data.

Linking Open Data

Now that I have shown you that there are these wonderful robust tools, and these wonderful extensible vocabularies we have some more things to talk about. We have to Link all of this data, and there is an ever expanding task force that are trying to find standardised solutions for it, they are available here:

https://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData

This comes back to what TimBL was talking about in his GGG blog post, linking these different files and vocabularies together - could also be called Schema Alignment (if we take some ideas from Relational Databases). This is an easier task than you can imagine, it is being done now, and nothing should stop you from using an RDF based solution (certainly hasn’t stopped companies like Adobe, Microsoft, BBC etc from using RDF solutions). More about Linked Data here: https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html

Conclusion

Today and yesterday has involved a lot of Semantic Web and Social Web conversation. My brain has digested a lot of new information, and I really want to share it with you all. I try my best to put things in terms that people can understand, but if you have any questions then please do shoot them at me.

Technorati Tags: semantic web, sweo, linkeddata, social web

For those interested I have a new page on my blog, its available directly here:

https://www.vanirsystems.com/danielsblog/articles-talks/

As you can probably tell by the URL it is a list of my articles and talks that I have done so far, check it out!

I’ve been doing a lot of “Socio-Semantic Web Evangelising” recently and this is probably going to continue in some form or another. In fact, tonight, I was at Oxford GeekNight (version 4)… I feel like my little 5 minute microslot went really well, and I had some interesting comments after by a few people. The slides are up on the new Articles and Talks page, it was also recorded too, so once I have the link to the recording I will update you all with that address.

This kind of Semantic Web Outreach is a two way process, although I am giving you all this information I do appreciate any feedback, even if it is bad feedback. I can take any feedback into the Semantic Web community and attempt to assist on making things better in the best (mostly usable) kinds of ways. Comments are always welcome.

Technorati Tags: semantic web, social web, sweo, evangelism, outreach, oxfordgeeks

People may have noticed that I am pushing bridges to be built between the Social Web and the Semantic Web. The reason for this is because I believe this could be the start of “Web 3.0“.

People have tried to define the Web 3.0. Nova Spivack has done a good job: https://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2007/10/web-30—-the-a.html

However, I want to define it in a simpler way (so you don’t have to crawl through all of Novas articles). My definition is:

• Usable
• Simple
• Mobile / Ubiquitous
• Meaningful
• More Intelligent

I give an example in a comment on a recent post by Tim O’Reilly ( https://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/11/software_above_single_device.html ). It goes like this:

why is it not easy for me to just tell my smart phone that I want to collect my phone book from all of the Web 2.0 style Social Networking Web Applications that I am a part of?

And this should be something that is automatic on the device, it should “know” my profile and know how to automatically connect to the relevant services.

The Semantic Web can provide the formats, the ontologies and the inferencing. The Social Web can provide the usability and socialness of such an application. Now we look towards innovation for “something else”

Technorati Tags: web 3.0, semantic web, social web

Note to self:

Never ever think about getting an XDA or any other kind of Windows Mobile again!

I have never had so many issues with a mobile phone (thats cellphone in the American vocabulary). My current XDA has been having so many problems, it has corrupted one SIM card and is currently having problems with the new one. It also has a really bad battery life, and when I have to remove the battery to fix the dodgy connection with the SIM card it resets all the settings including the date/time which is really annoying. Also Windows Mobile has a really hard to use interface. So yes, this is a note to self - I have had my O2 XDA mini-silver for about a year now, and I am looking forward to my contract being over so that I can get a much better phone

Technorati Tags: mobile, phone, xda, windowsmobile

For those interested my podcast is available here:

https://talk.talis.com/archives/2007/11/daniel_lewis_ta.html

Paul Miller and I talk about how the Social Web and the Semantic Web are related, and what we might see in the near future (what might be titled “Web 3.0″).

Technorati Tags: daniellewis, podcast, semanticweb, socialweb, talis, paulmiller

Who knows, the “Social Graph Model” may be completely incorrect… we should look at making a Social Pie Chart:

[Idea of the Social Pie Chart invented by Daniel Lewis and Tom Morris on 23rd November 2007 during a train Journey from Bristol Parkway]

[Numbers for the Pie Chart taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites ]

Technorati Tags: socialgraph, socialpiechart, web20

Hi all,

I am now without a job. Reason: I only had a 3 month contract at Curverider.

So I am currently very actively looking for a job, if you know there is one available then let me know.

• I’d prefer to work in the Oxford area
• I can do full time, but would consider part time
• I can work in Oxford until May 2008
• From May 2008 I can work in Bristol
• I will be starting full time study at the University of Bristol from the start of October 2008

If you are a prospective employer then let me know by email, telephone or skype and we can talk about things. I do have a CV available on request. Have a look around my blog and website to find out more about me, I also have LinkedIn and ecademy accounts.

My work essentially focuses on:

• The Semantic Web
• Web 2.0 (especially the Social Web)
• Web 3.0
• Intelligent Systems (of different varieties)

A list of the programming languages I use is available on this blog (here)

I will obviously post on this blog when I have found a job.

Many thanks for reading.

Daniel

Technorati Tags: job, wanted, semanticweb, socialweb

Hi Everybody,

Just letting you all know that I am probably not going to be around on my blog / skype /other-web-based-service much at the moment. This is because the hard drive in my old laptop died on Thursday, it was making more noise than a the cast of Stomp! I took it to the apple store on Saturday and they are replacing the hard drive for free (because its under warrenty).

I should get my laptop back soon.

Daniel

Technorati Tags: harddrive, macbook

From yesterday, I am a fully qualified (Usui Shiki Ryoho) Reiki Practitioner.

I have 12 lineages up to Makao Usui (the founder of Reiki).

I am considering doing Reiki for people professionally, but at the moment I will only practice on myself, family, friends and my fish. However, that doesn’t mean that I won’t consider doing a session for you if you ask me. I’ll announce it when I decide to go more professional.

I am able to do a religion-neutral form of Reiki, although I am willing to practice a Chakra-based system or a Christian-based system of Reiki.

by the way, if you are not sure what Reiki is (but know what Acupuncture is): Reiki is a kind of Acupuncture but without the needles. We place our hands on certain points of your body, these points are the points which can be seen as the communication sockets to your mind/body/spirit. Reiki is a complementary and holistic approach to healing, it does not and should not replace conventional medicine if it is needed (and is also complementary to other forms of complementary medicine - such as acupuncture or herbalism).

Technorati Tags: reiki, healing